Yup, it's been awhile. We've had a busy couple of months....moving into our new home, and getting settled. Not always easy at our age, :-) but so much fun just the same. Picking out the furniture, the color schemes, having so many walls to hang all our wall hangings on. Haven't been able to do that since we left Hamburg over 3 years ago. Anyway, as we've been purchasing (one of my new favorite stores:IKEA) and painting and hanging things on the walls, the time has been passing. Still making the 20 minute drive to Laurie's every morning to get Kasey to school, and most afternoons to pick him up, the days are going quickly. Kasey has found that he has a new, fun thing to do now....going to visit Grandma and Grandpa at their new home....and having a say in the colors of "his" bedroom. It's the bedroom he slept in as a baby, now a guestroom in the colors of his choice (blue and white, with black and white bedding and wall hangings). Thrift stores have become my good friends as I have been looking for gently used things which will look good. It's almost done....just need to shop for various "boy" wall hangings with Kasey's likes in mind....soccer balls, baseballs, etc. I was going to paint stripes at chair rail height, but that was until I found a perfect picture for the big wall in his room. It's a picture of a little boy and a little girl sitting on a beach looking out at the water and the gathering clouds. The little boy has his arm around the little girl's shoulders...the two of them just sitting there in comfortable companionship. I don't know who I think that little girl and boy represent. Scott and Laurie when they were little? Laurie and Stephen? Kasey and his cousin Veronica whom he sees but not very often since they live so far away. Maybe even Ron and I? Whoever they are, seeing that little boy and girl was what made me decide to take the more decorative and boy friendly option of pictures instead of stripes. I have a couple of places to go to complete it all, but I smile each time I go in that room.
Kasey is a little boy who needs his Daddy to come home - and this will be soon. I have missed Stephen as much as I missed Laurie when she was deployed. And despite the number of times I've written them in letters, emails, and even on Face Book, I need to hug Stephen, and say those three words...'I love you' ....in person, and hug him like I've never hugged him before.
Soon, my grandson will hug his Daddy, Laurie will hug her beloved husband, and Ron and I will hug our second son...we will watch his unit march into the welcome ceremony center, and my eyes will already be poring out tears.
The time has gone fairly quickly, but only because of the busy-ness in our lives. Some of the days have been more difficult than others, but THIS deployment, I finally got it right and hardly watched Fox news or CNN or any of those stations with the little crawlers of horrible happenings constantly running across the bottom of the TV screen. Actually, I started that habit while Laurie was deployed and it was a good idea. After a million deployments (okay, it SEEMS like a million), and hearing from other military moms that this is what they do during deployments, I finally decided to try it myself.
Since I've been here last, our nation has chosen a President - not Ron's or my choice, but we'll see if it goes better this time. The Middle East has become more volatile, and I continue to pray for a world which seems to be heading for disaster, yet which I know is still very much in God's hands. I've become even more active in church, and am more thankful for all God has blessed me with.
And today, Ron and I took the plunge and became legal residents of Colorado. I think we were just waiting till we sold the fifth wheel, which has finally happened, and we are now "officially" retired to Colorado.
It feels a little funny yet....because although we've been living here for awhile now, and had pretty much made up our minds that this would be home after we sold the RV, I think moving into our new home cemented the idea.
So, watch for pictures soon - pictures of Stephen, and Laurie, and Kasey.....pictures of them all together for the first time in nearly a year.And we can say those 3 words....I love you...in person and as we hug Stephen.
God has blessed us. Again.
